


Not So Alone

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel
Genre: Brooding, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), ThorBruce Week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 12:24:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21374122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Thor doesn’t have as much time to devote to a search as he would like. A king has duties and his people need leadership and guidance, now more than ever. But Heimdal and Valkyrie - and, Norns, even Loki - do their part to help him. He spends every moment that he could be getting an extra hour of sleep wandering the various levels of the ship, hoping that Bruce will come out from wherever he is hiding and speak to him.After Ragnarok, Thor and Bruce brood - and bond - as they make their way towards Earth aboard the refugee ship.---Written for ThorBruceWeek 2019 || Day 1: alone/space
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Thor
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36
Collections: Thorbruce Week 2019





	Not So Alone

**Author's Note:**

> This started as an attempt at re-writing a very old h/c fic that I never published and turned into something else   
\----  
Written on the tumblr asgardianbrucebanner

If there is one fact above all others that Thor knows about Bruce, it is that he should not be underestimated. 

Many would agree with him, although not for the right reasons. Sure, there is a ten foot giant living inside his… well, actually, Thor isn’t quite sure where Hulk goes when he’s not - as Bruce would put it - driving the car. But most people would say that he is Bruce’s secret power. 

Thor disagrees. For one, Hulk is hardly a secret, with more fans now than he has ever had. Especially among the Asgardian refugees, a few of whom have even begun composing songs and weaving grand tales of his recent heroism against Hela in his honour.

Not so much of that attention goes towards Bruce. 

Again, this is not due to reasons that anyone would expect. No, if the Asgardians were able to catch him alone, Thor is certain he’d get, perhaps not as much but still a fair amount of attention. 

And that’s just the thing isn’t it? They can’t catch him. Thor himself hasn’t seen hair nor green hide for three days now; a feat even Loki has been unable to accomplish when avoiding Thor. And Loki can shapeshift! 

Hidden powers indeed. 

Unfortunately, as impressive as Bruce’s ability to hide himself is, it has come to a point in Thor’s paranoia where he has begun to worry that Bruce may no longer be on the ship at all. Which should be unthinkable as a possibility - they haven’t passed a friendly planet in over a week now and Thor is not sure even the Hulk could survive in open space. Unless…

Well. That line of paranoia doesn’t even bear thinking about. 

Thor doesn’t have as much time to devote to a search as he would like. A king has duties and his people need leadership and guidance, now more than ever. But Heimdal and Valkyrie - and, Norns, even Loki - do their part to help him. He spends every moment that he could be getting an extra hour of sleep wandering the various levels of the ship, hoping that Bruce will come out from wherever he is hiding and speak to him. 

It hasn’t been long since Asgard was destroyed. Since Bruce sacrificed his freedom. Perhaps a month at most. It has been even less time since Hulk relinquished control to Bruce, dispelling Thor’s fears of Bruce being gone forever.

Thor needs to talk to him. Both he and Bruce had experienced drastic changes to their lives in just over a week of havoc - well, technically two years for Bruce, but his experiences only count when he’s in control, making both Ultron and Hela seem like one very bad week for him. 

Technicalities aside, Thor feels a connection to him. There’s a mutual understanding that they share, one that he cannot find among the other Asgardians and the warriors. 

Perhaps it has something to do with his love for Earth. Odin always said he loved the humans too much. 

Restless hours pass as Thor wanders through the dimly lit corridors, unable to sleep, too many thoughts in his head. He’s on the upper level tonight and soon passes by the main deck, spying his ‘throne’ illuminated in the starlight. 

It is a humble downgrade from the golden dias that had once stood in the palace of his home planet. 

It seems... fitting. 

He puts a hand on the back of it, which is noticeably less grand and gilded than the one in Asgard, and sighs. The turmoil that has not left him since witnessing Odin’s death is weighing heavily on him tonight. As if the two large ravens that had once served as his father’s informers has suddenly landed on his shoulders and gripped him with their talons, flapping their wings against every movement he makes until it’s a struggle to even stay upright. 

Odin, he has come to realise, had not been a good king. 

Certainly not a good father. 

And so if both these things were true… why was he so filled with this confusing… this unfathomable… 

... was this guilt? 

He touches a finger to the patch covering the empty place where his eye had once been, tracing the protruding lines that decorate the front in a simple cross, and closes the eye still remaining as he thinks back on his losses. Not of Odin but his people. His friends. 

His mother. 

What had her role been in all of this? How involved had she been with Odin’s crimes against the universe? It is more difficult to think of the kind, loving face of his mother in connection to such heinous warmongering but he cannot think of any way she could have been separated from it either. 

He wishes that he could ask her. 

There are so many things that he never asked her. 

“Thor?” 

And suddenly, there is Bruce. 

Thor hadn’t heard him come in, so he jumps when he turns to find Bruce already right at his side, looking up at him with concern in his eyes. 

Thor knows that he is intelligent. One of the most intelligent of his kind and of many other kinds, for that matter. Right now he is almost sure that Bruce can read him like an open book, has already analysed his body language during his little brooding session by the throne and is about to unleash a slew of compassionate understanding that Thor quite frankly… is not sure that he deserves. 

“Sorry,” Bruce apologises. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you. You looked like you were thinking.” 

It’s not a question. Bruce wouldn’t be so bold as to pry. But it is an intentional opening for Thor to speak his mind, should he wish to. 

And he does. 

“I was thinking about my mother.”

Bruce nods and folds his arms, as if a sudden chill has gone through him. Thor side steps closer to him and is delighted when Bruce responds by doing the same, although he is almost sure it is not the cold that is getting to Bruce. 

“You miss her?” 

If it were anyone else, any other time, perhaps Thor would have snapped at them not to be so ridiculous. Of course he misses her, he loves his mother. But he knows now of the complications of one’s parents. 

He knows that Bruce knows too. 

A small tear burns in the corner of his remaining eye. He swallows a lump but his voice sounds strained. 

“Yeah.” There is so much more to it than that. So much that he doesn’t understand in his own head, much less be able to put into words. 

He clears his throat. 

“Not a single day has passed since her death where I have not missed her.” 

Bruce’s fingers brush against Thor’s, and Thor takes his hand, intertwining their fingers and feeling the gentle squeeze of reassurance that Bruce gives to him as another hot tear slips down his cheek. 

No more words will come out, so Thor turns his head away, forwards, once more facing the window that covers the front of the ship. Through it, the stars slide across the expanse of the inky blackness, slow in their movements, as if travelling through a thick treacle. Thor knows that this is because he is the one moving, not the stars, which are in fact billions of lightyears away from them. Yet as a child Thor had always imagined them as living beings of fantastic power and he thinks, perhaps, a little bit of that fantasy has stuck with him.

The sparkling pinpricks of light bend and stretch through his tears, their glow serving as yet another reminder of his mother. He wonders where the light that had risen from her body on her funeral day had ended up. It must be somewhere out in the cosmos. He could be looking at it right now for all that he knows, weaved somewhere into the golden trail of a comet, or the swirling colours of a nebula, or perhaps even the burst of a bright supernova. 

Bruce speaks up after a long silence has stretched out between them and all of Thor’s tears have dried up. 

“I do too.” Thor can tell by the emptiness in his voice that he is tired. “Miss my mother,” Bruce clarifies, as if it were needed. Thor knows him well enough to pick up on a trail after such a long silence. 

The hair on Bruce’s head is slightly longer than it had been on Sakaar, he notices when Bruce runs a hand through it in familiar gesture that meant stress and relief. The shaved sides seem to have regained some of their curl. 

“I don’t think I can even remember her face anymore,” Bruce continues. “But… I still have these faint, warm memories of her voice.” For a brief moment a warm smile twitches at the corner of his lip, before a much darker look comes over him and it fades. “I don’t try to remember the rest.”

Thor gives him a sad, watery smile. It would seem that he is not so alone after all. 

He sniffs, wiping his runny nose with the back of his hand. Bruce digs into the folds of the Asgardian robes that had been given to him upon return - worn in a slightly adapted manner so that it is more knotted and wrapped tight, instead of flowing around him - and hands him a scrap of cloth that will serve him as a handkerchief. 

“You should probably get some sleep. I don’t know why you were up and wandering around so late at night, but you look beat.” 

Thor blows his nose noisily and sniffs again. “I was looking for you. I’ve been worried.” 

The small smile that had been growing on Bruce’s face once more drops again and he looks down, sheepish. “Sorry. I’ve been working some things out and needed to be alone for a while.” He sighs and the smile returns, if tighter. “But I appreciate the concern.” 

Thor tilts his head, immediately asking, “Do you want to talk about it?” 

It seems, for a moment, as if Bruce is going to accept. A conflicted mixture of emotions crosses his features, before settling on something close to ‘touched’. Finally, he shakes his head. 

“Not tonight. You really do need to sleep. We both do. But I’ll see you again soon. I promise.” 

Thor takes the hand that is still linked with his before Bruce can walk away, bringing it up to his lips and pressing a soft kiss to the back of it.

“I will hold you to that.” 

This time, the smile that grows on Bruce’s face doesn’t drop away. 


End file.
